This invention relates generally to shelling devices and, more particularly, to crustacean shelling devices.
The present invention represents an improvement over various roller type devices heretofore available for removing meat from crabs and other crustaceans. Such devices have been the product of efforts to develop machines to replace the tedious and time consuming manual processing of crustacean meat. For the most part, the devices heretofore available have proven relatively inefficient, unreliable, and, in some cases, dangerous. In view of the high and rising prices commanded for crab meat and other crustacean food products, even relatively small improvements in the performance of processing machines have been actively and continuously sought. Accordingly, it is the object of the present invention to provide a more efficient and reliable crustacean processing device.
Mechanized devices for processing precooked crustacean body parts have employed various configurations of horizontally mounted squeeze rollers. The principle of operation of these rollers is basically similar to that of the present invention. As crustacean body parts are grasped in the nip of the rollers, the simultaneous shearing and squeezing action of the rollers squeezes the meat portion out of the shell, whereupon the meat falls free and the shell portion is pulled through the rollers. A problem common to the prior art devices employing horizontally mounted rollers is that the crustacean meat is hindered from falling free by the presence of the lower roller. A jet of water or other means must be used to wash the crustacean meat free of the roller and into a meat collection chute. Nevertheless, the meat occasionally hangs up momentarily on the surface of the lower roller and is pulled through the nip of the rollers and lost. This results in inefficiency and economic loss.
One solution to the above mentioned problem is to use vertically mounted rollers wherein the separated crustacean meat may fall freely downward in front of the rollers, without contacting either roller, immediately upon being separated from the crustacean shell. Such a solution has not been practically implemented heretofore because it poses particularly difficult problems in feeding the crustacean body parts into the roller. In particular, vertically mounted rollers are not amenable to the use of conveyor belt feed systems generally used in the industry. Manually inserting crustacean body portions into the rollers is highly dangerous, and mechanical feed devices for vertically mounted rollers have not been heretofore available.
Accordingly, it is also an object of the present invention to provide a crustacean processing apparatus employing vertically mounted counterrotating rollers and having a safe and efficient feeding mechanism to insert crustacean body parts into the nip thereof.